Booth was from a culture (a reward system) that gave power, prestige, and passion to those men who outdid other men in hating equality for blacks — the idea that blacks could vote drove Booth into action.

People seem ignorant of the effect of culture on men’s activity. In a very real sense, Booth was trying to get to the top of his culture – to get the most attention, power, prestige, passion, that he could. He had to outdo the other guys.

He saw killing Lincoln as a way to get those rewards. He would be the hero –the star. He would be lavished with praise, attention, sex, fame.

It was the praise, attention, sex and fame he wanted. Killing was basically a means to an end.

If Booth had been in a culture that rewarded freedom for slaves — he would have had an entirely different reaction of course to Lincoln’s speech, because he would have a different group of people to impress.

He would still want the same victory over other men to get the power, prestige, passion. He would just be singing a differnt tune – but he would still want the applause at the end of the song.

We often examine a person’s specific action — Booth shooting LIncoln, Oswald shooting Kennedy – McVeigh killing kindergarten kids.

What were they really doing? They were tying to compete for power, prestige, and passion in that culture. It’s timem we examine the power of culture — which is really just a reward system.

There are vile cultures — there are healthy cultures. The Nazi culture, for example, was based on violence and superiority of one race. The slave culture in the USA was pretty much the same.

So how do these cultures form? What group of people was Booth trying to impress?

So if you talk about people’s actions, but you just don’t have a clue about their culture, then you aren’t really understanding anything.

She’s getting so big!